is one of the possible disappointments of Venice, and you may if
you like take advantage of your privilege of not caring for it.
It imparts a look of great richness to the side of the beautiful
room of the Academy on which it hangs; but the same room contains
two or three works less known to fame which are equally capable
of inspiring a passion. "The 'Annunciation' struck me as coarse
and superficial": that note was once made in a simple-minded
tourist's book. At Venice, strange to say, Titian is altogether a
disappointment; the city of his adoption is far from containing
the best of him. Madrid, Paris, London, Florence, Dresden, Munich
--these are the homes of his greatness.

There are other painters who have but a single home, and the
greatest of these is the Tintoret. Close beside him sit Carpaccio
and Bellini, who make with him the dazzling Venetian trio. The
Veronese may be seen and measured in other places; he is most
splendid in Venice, but he shines in Paris and in Dresden. You
may walk out of the noon-day dusk of Trafalgar Square in
November, and in one of the chambers of the National Gallery see
the family of Darius rustling and pleading and weeping at the
feet of Alexander. Alexander is a beautiful young Venetian in
crimson pantaloons, and the picture sends a glow into the cold
London twilight. You may sit before it for an hour and dream you
are floating to the water-gate of the Ducal Palace, where a
certain old beggar who has one of the handsomest heads in the
world--he has sat to a hundred painters for Doges and for
personages more sacred--has a prescriptive right to pretend to
pull your gondola to the steps and to hold out a greasy
immemorial cap. But you must go to Venice in very fact to see the
other masters, who form part of your life while you are there,